Garden of Dreams (23 page)

“The sheriff's car!” she exclaimed as he swung the Toyota in behind her mother's aging Cadillac. All the lights in the house were blazing, and Nina had her door open before JD turned off the ignition. “Something's happened to Jackie!”

Nina flew up the walk and into the house before JD could catch up with her. Feeling a boulder caught in his throat, he followed her with a more measured tread. He was never in a hurry for bad news, and in his life, law enforcement officials always meant bad news.

He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and felt an enormous burden lift from his shoulders when he saw Nina hugging his embarrassed son. The boy looked all in one piece. If this piercing pain in his middle at the sight of a sheriff's car was what fatherhood was about, JD didn't want any part of it. He gave the boy's pale face and haunted eyes a quick look, then swung toward the sheriff, prepared to defend his son for all he was worth.

“What's this about?” His angry, defensive tone reminded JD of his own father, and he bit his tongue before he made it worse by saying more. From the corner of his eye he noticed Nina's mother sitting calmly on the couch, flipping magazine pages. If she had anything to do with this...

“The boy found a body down in the lake. I've been sitting with him until you got home. We'll need you and Nina to see if you can identify the deceased, since he was found on this property.”

Nina gasped. JD didn't know how he felt about it himself. He'd seen bodies before, some still pouring their life's blood into the street. He hadn't lived in the best neighborhoods growing up. He didn't want Nina experiencing it. It revolted him knowing Jackie had.

Ignoring the sheriff, JD turned and placed his arm around Jackie's shoulders. “You all right, kid?”

Jackie nodded and pulled away, taking a chair to avoid any more embarrassing displays of affection. “It was pretty horrible. He was all bloated up and everything. I thought it was a beached whale.”

JD saw Nina's wry grimace and knew he couldn't put her through that.

“I'll go with you,” he told the sheriff. “I don't think Nina should. I can't imagine either of us will know the man. I don't know anyone out here, and Nina knows the same people you know.”

Hoyt shrugged uncomfortably inside his uniform shirt. JD traced his fingers up and down Nina's arm as he waited for the sheriff's reply.

“You and Nina would know if any strangers came out here. He didn't look dressed for boating or fishing. I've got people working on that end, but we usually know about any boating accidents within minutes. If he slipped and fell from land, he must have been on this property when he went in.”

Nina spoke before JD could reply. “There haven't been any strangers out here, Hoyt, except the cell phone people. They wear those uniforms with their names on them so people won't shoot them when they start wandering around. And like he said, everyone's a stranger to JD. Jackie is up and down that path and in those woods all the time. If he didn't recognize the man, then none of us will.”

“He says he's never seen the body before. Of course, it's been in the water a few days.” Hoyt looked hesitant, as if unwilling to force the issue.

“I'm the only stranger around here these days,” the woman on the couch announced. She had found an emery board and was shaping her nails. “Shall I go down and see if I can identify the body? Maybe it's someone from my past returned to haunt me.”

She made it sound as if it were a joke, but a body appearing on the same day as Helen Mclntyre returned from the dead seemed an odd coincidence.

“If you'd all come down in the morning, I'd appreciate it,” Hoyt finally said, twisting his hat in his hands. “We have to send him in for an autopsy, so you'd better come early. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I've got to cover all bases.”

“No, I don't think so, Sheriff.” JD removed his arm from Nina's shoulders and started toward the door. “I've seen dead bodies before, and I'll not put these women through that unnecessarily. There's been no one on the property since I've been here. If the man is from around here, someone else can identify him. If he's not, then we can't identify him either. I appreciate your looking after Jackie, but the nightmare ends there.”

Over the years, JD had learned to speak with authority. He'd commanded troops of marines and corps of employees. One country sheriff wouldn't tell him what to do.

Hoyt moved awkwardly toward the door. “It might not be a matter of choice. When the results come back, we might have to subpoena everyone. Maybe someone will file a missing-person report.”

“That's most likely.” JD firmly closed the door once the sheriff stepped outside.

He turned and found all eyes on him. He sought Nina's first, wanting reassurance that he'd done the right thing. When she nodded with gratitude, he looked at his son. Jackie was still pale, but he no longer looked frightened. JD thought this might be part of being a father, also, protecting his offspring from the world's unpleasantness until he was ready to deal with it. He gave the boy an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“Go on up to bed. I think you've had enough excitement for the night.”

“It was gruesome,” Jackie agreed obliquely. “Do you think he fell out of a boat?”

“I don't think about it at all. You shouldn't either. That's the sheriff's job. You just get a good night's sleep. You need to start back on that clearing project early, before it gets too hot.”

 
“Well, now that the excitement's over, I think I'll retire, also,” Helen said brightly. “Had I known what fascinating lives you all lead out here, I might have returned sooner. Good night, Nina. And you, too, Mr. Smith. You look as if you've had some experience handling cops.”

JD ignored the dig as the woman took the stairs. He'd met plenty of poisonous females in his time. He was immune to their venom. What he wasn't immune to was the innocence of someone like Nina. She looked at him with those wide eyes so open and defenseless that all his locked and rusted gates creaked open.

He watched the green of her eyes haze over as she stared up at him. He stroked her cheek, wishing the day could have ended better.

“Maybe we should go in the morning,” she whispered uneasily. “It doesn't seem right, that poor man....”

JD placed a finger over her lips. “That's your overdeveloped sense of duty talking. Believe me, you don't want to see what a drowned corpse looks like.”

“Do you think my mother?... I mean, it is odd that she arrived and...”

JD shook his head. “That's her problem, and the sheriff's. Concentrate on your own problems. I'll get the name of that attorney in the morning, one way or another.”

She nodded, grateful again. He didn't want her grateful. He wanted her all hot and bothered as she had been this afternoon. He knew she'd never make a move on her own. It was up to him, and JD felt totally inadequate for the task.

“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, not daring more for fear of producing that wounded look he'd seen once too often in her eyes.

She just looked at him as if she didn't know what he was talking about. A man would think she'd never heard of sex before. JD discarded the thought. It made him edgy as hell. He lowered his head and did what he'd wanted to do in the first place. He kissed her.

She was so damned soft and giving. She curled up against him like a purring kitten content with stroking and fondling. He didn't want contentment. He wanted fiery swords and slain dragons. His arousal pressed against the confinement of his trousers, demanding the thrust and parry of conquest. And she purred and licked at his lips as if he were no more than another pussycat.

Baffled by his raging lust and a surge of protectiveness, JD cuddled Nina close and thrust his tongue between her teeth at the same time. She responded willingly, but not with the heated hunger he needed. He wanted to rip off that sexy dress and take her on the floor. But Nina trustingly wrapped her arms around his neck and brushed against him with such eager naiveté that JD couldn't imagine doing anything so crude.

He stroked the side of her breast, cursing at the wired undergarment he felt when he wanted something much softer. “Let's go somewhere we can close the door,” he murmured against her ear, steering her toward his bedroom.

She stopped and froze at once, pulling her arms away so fast that JD reacted as if doused by an icy splash of lake water.

“My mother and your son are upstairs, and you want us to make out like a couple of teenagers behind closed doors? What kind of example is that setting?”

Make out? He wanted a hell of a lot more than making out. “You'd rather do it out here, where they can see us?” He didn't like the angry edge of his voice, but he wasn't precisely in control of himself at the moment. “It's not as if we have anything to hide. We're two consenting, unattached adults. There's no shame in it.”

Nina stared at him with mixed terror and horror. She was terrified at herself, at her response to this man she scarcely knew. And she was horrified at the suggestion she thought he was making. She shouldn't be, she knew. Of course JD thought she would want the same thing he wanted.

She'd just wanted someone holding her for a little while. It felt good having strong arms around her. And that was a weakness she couldn't afford.

Nina grasped words she'd used before, words she'd entrusted to memory. “I don't believe in sex without commitment,” she announced, as if that ended the subject.

It didn't. JD's eyes narrowed, and his fingers strayed daringly close to her nipples, to the point that Nina shivered in anticipation. She couldn't pull away. She simply stood there, waiting for him to understand.

“You want this as much as I do,” he accused—rightly. “I don't know what they teach in this backwater town, but sex is something perfectly natural, just a release of tension and hormones. We'd quit sniping at each other so much if we could work out some of this chemistry sizzling between us. I can protect you, if that's your concern.”

He spoke in perfectly, wonderfully logical tones while his hand played havoc with her senses. In another minute, he would find the hidden button behind her lapels, and her gown would fall open beneath his exploring fingers. If she could believe someone cared, someone saw her and wanted her just as she was...

But JD Smith or whatever his name was didn't care, or he'd never ask this of her in such cold, logical terms. JD simply wanted a female body in his bed.

“Chemistry and hormones are not enough. I'm not a teenager. I'll thank you to keep your hands to yourself. Find someone else to release your damned tensions.”

Teeth chattering from the strength of her anger and her tears, Nina stormed from the room, leaving JD to figure things out all by himself.

She was probably the only twenty-nine-year-old virgin in the world. And the hell of it was, she didn't want to be. She'd just reached a point where she was too terrified to be anything else.

“Helen! Look at you. I knew you'd come home.”

Wrinkled and so shrunken that she looked as if she'd wasted away, leaving only her skin behind, Hattie sat upright in her wheelchair, observing her visitors. Her gaze was alert as it focused first on Helen, then on Nina. “It's about time you got here, young lady. I'm ready to go home now.”

Nina's heart sank. Of all the days for Hattie to be coherent, she had to make it the day Helen visited. For months now, she'd prayed for a day when she could talk with her great-aunt, get her advice, her assurance that she did the right thing. Her opportunity had finally arrived, and she had to share it with this stranger who claimed to be her mother.

“Hattie! How wonderful to see you again.” Helen hugged the old woman. The cloud of her perfume wafted through the tiny room, and Hattie immediately waved the scent away as her niece stepped back, smiling.

“See you still haven't learned subtlety, girl,” Hattie grumbled. “You smell like a bitch in heat. Open the window, will you?”

Nina smothered a laugh, kissed Hattie's cheek, and bounced down on the bed beside her. “Oh, Aunt Hattie, it's so good seeing you well again. I have so many things I want to tell you. I've found a landscape architect who's making designs for the garden for free. They're the most marvelous things you'll ever see!”

“With what you're paying to keep me in here, we could be planting the gardens,” Hattie grumbled. “My hip's all better. I can go home now.”

“Of course you can, Hattie.” Apparently deciding the hermetically sealed window wouldn't open, Helen took the small chair stuffed in the corner. “I'll talk to your doctor today. Now that I'm back, I can look after you.”

Hattie gave her an approving look. “I always knew you were a good girl. That husband of yours wasn't ever any good. You married too young. But I taught Nina better. You're just like your grandmama, but Nina takes after me,” she said proudly, patting Nina's hand. “She's too smart to let any man talk her into throwing her life away.”

Nina sighed. This wasn't the direction she wanted the conversation to take. If she had only a few minutes of coherency, she didn't want her aunt wandering down dead-ends. “The cell phone people want right-of-way to your hill, Aunt Hattie,” Nina said quickly, before Helen could find some suitably sugary reply. “They want to put a tower right where your rose garden is. I've told them they can't have it, but they're talking about having the land condemned. Do you mind if I hire a lawyer to keep them out?”